The Same Pleasant And Observant Historian Whom We Quoted Above
Says, That, "In The Mountainous Parts Of The Country, The Ascent
Of Vapors, And Their Formation Into Clouds, Is A Curious And
Entertaining Object.
The vapors are seen rising in small columns
like smoke from many chimneys.
When risen to a certain height,
they spread, meet, condense, and are attracted to the mountains,
where they either distil in gentle dews, and replenish the
springs, or descend in showers, accompanied with thunder. After
short intermissions, the process is repeated many times in the
course of a summer day, affording to travellers a lively
illustration of what is observed in the Book of Job, `They are
wet with the showers of the mountains.'"
Fogs and clouds which conceal the overshadowing mountains lend
the breadth of the plains to mountain vales. Even a
small-featured country acquires some grandeur in stormy weather
when clouds are seen drifting between the beholder and the
neighboring hills. When, in travelling toward Haverhill through
Hampstead in this State, on the height of land between the
Merrimack and the Piscataqua or the sea, you commence the descent
eastward, the view toward the coast is so distant and unexpected,
though the sea is invisible, that you at first suppose the
unobstructed atmosphere to be a fog in the lowlands concealing
hills of corresponding elevation to that you are upon; but it is
the mist of prejudice alone, which the winds will not disperse.
The most stupendous scenery ceases to be sublime when it becomes
distinct, or in other words limited, and the imagination is no
longer encouraged to exaggerate it. The actual height and
breadth of a mountain or a waterfall are always ridiculously
small; they are the imagined only that content us. Nature is not
made after such a fashion as we would have her. We piously
exaggerate her wonders, as the scenery around our home.
Such was the heaviness of the dews along this river that we were
generally obliged to leave our tent spread over the bows of the
boat till the sun had dried it, to avoid mildew. We passed the
mouth of Penichook Brook, a wild salmon-stream, in the fog,
without seeing it. At length the sun's rays struggled through
the mist and showed us the pines on shore dripping with dew, and
springs trickling from the moist banks, -
"And now the taller sons, whom Titan warms,
Of unshorn mountains blown with easy winds,
Dandle the morning's childhood in their arms,
And, if they chanced to slip the prouder pines,
The under corylets did catch their shines,
To gild their leaves."
We rowed for some hours between glistening banks before the sun
had dried the grass and leaves, or the day had established its
character. Its serenity at last seemed the more profound and
secure for the denseness of the morning's fog. The river became
swifter, and the scenery more pleasing than before. The banks
were steep and clayey for the most part, and trickling with
water, and where a spring oozed out a few feet above the river
the boatmen had cut a trough out of a slab with their axes, and
placed it so as to receive the water and fill their jugs
conveniently. Sometimes this purer and cooler water, bursting
out from under a pine or a rock, was collected into a basin close
to the edge of and level with the river, a fountain-head of the
Merrimack. So near along life's stream are the fountains of
innocence and youth making fertile its sandy margin; and the
voyageur will do well to replenish his vessels often at these
uncontaminated sources. Some youthful spring, perchance, still
empties with tinkling music into the oldest river, even when it
is falling into the sea, and we imagine that its music is
distinguished by the river-gods from the general lapse of the
stream, and falls sweeter on their ears in proportion as it is
nearer to the ocean. As the evaporations of the river feed thus
these unsuspected springs which filter through its banks, so,
perchance, our aspirations fall back again in springs on the
margin of life's stream to refresh and purify it. The yellow and
tepid river may float his scow, and cheer his eye with its
reflections and its ripples, but the boatman quenches his thirst
at this small rill alone. It is this purer and cooler element
that chiefly sustains his life. The race will long survive that
is thus discreet.
Our course this morning lay between the territories of Merrimack,
on the west, and Litchfield, once called Brenton's Farm, on the
east, which townships were anciently the Indian Naticook.
Brenton was a fur-trader among the Indians, and these lands were
granted to him in 1656. The latter township contains about five
hundred inhabitants, of whom, however, we saw none, and but few
of their dwellings. Being on the river, whose banks are always
high and generally conceal the few houses, the country appeared
much more wild and primitive than to the traveller on the
neighboring roads. The river is by far the most attractive
highway, and those boatmen who have spent twenty or twenty-five
years on it must have had a much fairer, more wild, and memorable
experience than the dusty and jarring one of the teamster who has
driven, during the same time, on the roads which run parallel
with the stream. As one ascends the Merrimack he rarely sees a
village, but for the most part alternate wood and pasture lands,
and sometimes a field of corn or potatoes, of rye or oats or
English grass, with a few straggling apple-trees, and, at still
longer intervals, a farmer's house. The soil, excepting the best
of the interval, is commonly as light and sandy as a patriot
could desire. Sometimes this forenoon the country appeared in
its primitive state, and as if the Indian still inhabited it,
and, again, as if many free, new settlers occupied it, their
slight fences straggling down to the water's edge; and the
barking of dogs, and even the prattle of children, were heard,
and smoke was seen to go up from some hearthstone, and the banks
were divided into patches of pasture, mowing, tillage, and
woodland.
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